Abstract

The chapter argues that the structure evident in recent discussions of mysticism can also be found in modernist and postmodernist critical theory. It draws attention to a structure to be found repeatedly in the arguments of Jean-François Lyotard, Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Derrida and Theodor W. Adorno: namely, the self-consciously paradoxical position which makes any alternative to the modern forms of identity that they criticize structurally unavailable. The chapter suggest a change of perspective, following up aspects of Derrida’s and Adorno’s arguments which they did not pursue further. The new perspective asks what type of identity or way of life underpins the conviction that alternatives are structurally unavailable. This opens the way for an historical approach to forms of identity.

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